The Hot Topics table was looking a little thin on this morning’s episode of The View. While Joy Behar is typically off on Mondays, we couldn’t help but notice that Sara Haines was also missing from the panel. But why? Well, Whoopi Goldberg filled us in.
At the start of the episode, Goldberg joined Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin on the stage, before revealing the reason behind Haines’ absence.
“Hello and welcome to The View,” she said as she settled into her seat. “Sara is out sick today so there’s only four of us at the table. I just said, ‘Is somebody missing?’ But Sara’s out sick, apparently.”
The longtime moderator then used her co-host’s absence to seamlessly transition into the show’s first Hot Topic subject of the day.
“But that does not mean that the gridlock in the House has not stopped. They’re still trying to find a new speaker and it just keeps getting worse,” Goldberg explained, before introducing a clip of Saturday Night Live parodying the debacle.
While Haines was missing from the regular Hot Topics debates as well as the panel’s interview with Uma Thurman, she did make a pre-taped appearance at the end of the episode for the Oprah Daily segment. Goldberg even warned viewers ahead of the commercial break.
“Sara was here for an Oprah Daily edition of The View, so don’t be surprised when you see her,” she said.
The last time we saw Haines was on Friday, Oct. 20 when she backed up Navarro’s brutal view on “brat” nepo babies.
“The people who give nepo babies a bad name are the people who start every sentence with, ‘My father,’ or, ‘My mother,’” Navarro fumed at the time. “[They] are talentless dolts, and instead of being humble and grateful for the opportunities they are given because they won the ovarian lottery, [they] are toxic brats, entitled and privileged, who make everybody’s life hell because they know they can’t be fired because of who they are.”
Haines, who took a much lighter approach, then chimed in to agree with Navarro: “There are two types of nepo babies,” she clarified.
“There are nepo babies that act like that. And then there are nepo babies that come in and they work twice as hard because they know that they have that leg up,” she continued. “Those people are some of the best in the room because they need to prove themselves.”
The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.